Inspiring Ideological Quotes

Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but the Muslim Ideology which has to be preserved, which has come to us as a precious gift and treasure and which, we hope other will share with us.

Advice to my younger self: 1 Start where you are with what you have 2 Try not to hurt other people 3 Take more chances 4 If you fail, keep trying

Only those afraid of the truth seek to silence debate, intimidate those with whom they disagree, or slander their ideological counterparts. Those who know they are right have no reason to stifle debate because they realize that all opposing arguments will ultimately be overcome by fact.

If you want the answer—ask the question.

No ideology can help to create a new world or a new mind or a new human being -- because ideological orientation itself is the root cause of all the conflicts and all the miseries. Thought creates boundaries, thought creates divisions and thought creates prejudices; thought itself cannot bridge them. That's why all ideologies fail. Now man must learn to live without ideologies religious, political or otherwise. When the mind is not tethered to any ideology, it is free to move to new understandings. And in that freedom flowers all that is good and all that is beautiful.

Generasi kempong tidak punya waktu dan tidak memiliki tradisi untuk tahu beda antara kalimat sindiran dengan bukan sindiran. Tak tahu apa itu ironi, sarkasme, sanepan, istidraj ... Generasi kempong sangat rentan terhadap apa saja, termasuk informasi ... Tidak ada etos kerja. Tidak ada ideologi dharma, atau falya’mal ‘amalan shalihan ... Yang dipunyai hanya obsesi hasil, khayal kepemilikan dan kenikmatan.

Consider again that dot [Earth]. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Study so that you are able to meet arguments of your opponents. Equip your ideology with supporting arguments. If you oppose a prevailing belief, if you criticize a great person who is considered to be an incarnation, you will find that your criticism will be answered by calling you vain and egoist. The reason for this is mental ignorance. Logic and free thinking are the twin qualities that a revolutionary must inevitably possess. To say that Mahatmas, who are great, should not be criticized because they are above criticism and for this reason, whatever they say about politics, religion, economics and ethics is correct and that whatever they say will have to be accepted, whether you believe it or not, reveals a mentality which cannot lead us to progress and is clearly regressive.

Privatization will always be a timid ideology as long as architects are allowed to unveil their buildings.

To me feminism is not simply a struggle to end male chauvinism or a movement to ensure that women will have equal rights with men; it is a commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels--sex, race, and class, to name a few--and a commitment to reorganizing U.S. society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires.

Godess of peace can walk only in the company of god of war and that every great act of peace must be protected and assisted by force So, we must be in living realization of the duty of each man to sacrifice his life at all times so that his country might live.....

Inequality is the deepest of problems, built into the structure of reality itself, and will not be solved by the presumptuous, ideology-inspiring retooling of the rare free, stable and productive democracies of the world.

The only way to make a library safe is to lock people out of it. As long as they are allowed to read the books 'any old time they have a mind to,' libraries will remain the nurseries of heresy and independence of thought. They will, in fact, preserve that freedom which is a far more important part of our lives than any ideology or orthodoxy, the freedom that dissolves orthodoxies and inspires solutions to the ever-changing challenges of the future. I hope that your library and mine will continue in this way to be dangerous for many years to come.

ANTISEMITISM, a secular nineteenth-century ideology—which in name, though not in argument, was unknown before the 1870’s—and religious Jew-hatred, inspired by the mutually hostile antagonism of two conflicting creeds, are obviously not the same;

When in doubt, vary, change, solve the problem, seize the opportunity, experiment, try something new (consistent, of course, with the core ideology)—even if you can’t predict precisely how things will turn out. Do something. If one thing fails, try another. Fix. Try. Do. Adjust. Move. Act. No matter what, don’t sit still.

One great question underlies our experience, whether we think about it or not: what is the purpose of life? . . . From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment. . . Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.

I’m not the kind of girl who spends hours getting ready. I don’t blow dry my hair. And I hate make up. I’m not pretty. And I don’t want to be. I am passionate and restless and wild. I’m exhausted by prudent ideologies. I’m not inferior because of my lack of convention. I’m as strong as I am broken. I’m tired of having my sexuality mistaken for an invitation. I will sweat and I will run. I will let the rain come down on me. I want to feel life as I am. I don’t want to skate through having my immoderation controlled by weak judgements. By fear. I don’t want to be who I’m supposed to be, I want to be who I am.

Unlike most founding dictators—Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler—Mao did not inspire a passionate following through his oratory, or ideological appeal. He simply sought willing recruits among his immediate circle, people who would take his orders.

I’m often asked how I take the criticism directed my way. I have three answers: First, if you choose to be in public life, remember Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice and grow skin as thick as a rhinoceros. Second, learn to take criticism seriously but not personally. Your critics can actually teach you lessons your friends can’t or won’t. I try to sort out the motivation for criticism, whether partisan, ideological, commercial, or sexist, analyze it to see what I might learn from it, and discard the rest. Third, there is a persistent double standard applied to women in politics - regarding clothes, body types, and of course hairstyles - that you can’t let derail you. Smile and keep going.

From the shattered tools and bones of our predecessors, we craft our own weapons. Nothing is guaranteed to work, yet we attack regardless. We do so naked, having shed the rags of morality, ideology, and politics that had accumulated over time. We confront this world raw, in all its horrifying glory.

As an inspiration for terrorism, however, nationalism has been far more productive than religion. Terrorism experts agree that the denial of a people’s right to national self-determination and the occupation of its homeland by foreign forces has historically been the most powerful recruiting agent of terrorist organizations, whether their ideology is religious (the Lebanese Shii) or secular (the PLO).

We have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to the visible surface of things, practicality, bottom-line-ism. We have gone very, very sick. And the body politic, like any body, when it feels itself to be sick, it begins to produce antibodies, or strategies for overcoming the condition of dis-ease. And the 20th century is an enormous effort at self-healing. Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating ordinary canons of sexual behaviour, I applaud all of this; because it's an impulse to return to what is felt by the body -- what is authentic, what is archaic -- and when you tease apart these archaic impulses, at the very centre of all these impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling. And at the centre of that impulse is the shaman: stoned, intoxicated on plants, speaking with the spirit helpers, dancing in the moonlight, and vivifying and invoking a world of conscious, living mystery. That's what the world is. The world is not an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a living mystery: our birth, our death, our being in the moment -- these are mysteries. They are doorways opening on to unimaginable vistas of self-exploration, empowerment and hope for the human enterprise. And our culture has killed that, taken it away from us, made us consumers of shoddy products and shoddier ideals. We have to get away from that; and the way to get away from it is by a return to the authentic experience of the body -- and that means sexually empowering ourselves, and it means getting loaded, exploring the mind as a tool for personal and social transformation. The hour is late; the clock is ticking; we will be judged very harshly if we fumble the ball. We are the inheritors of millions and millions of years of successfully lived lives and successful adaptations to changing conditions in the natural world. Now the challenge passes to us, the living, that the yet-to-be-born may have a place to put their feet and a sky to walk under; and that's what the psychedelic experience is about, is caring for, empowering, and building a future that honours the past, honours the planet and honours the power of the human imagination. There is nothing as powerful, as capable of transforming itself and the planet, as the human imagination. Let's not sell it straight. Let's not whore ourselves to nitwit ideologies. Let's not give our control over to the least among us. Rather, you know, claim your place in the sun and go forward into the light. The tools are there; the path is known; you simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone sterile and dead, and get with the programme of a living world and a re-empowerment of the imagination. Thank you very, very much.

The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented. From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure. Those who preach the tenets of these discredited ideologies only contribute to the continued suffering of the people who live under these cruel systems.

Communism as I see it has no place in the United States, and the American people will not stand for its teachings.

don't be affected by the ideologies of others because no one can be someone else, be yourself, the real you is a winner

Only those afraid of the truth seek to silence debate, intimidate those with whom they disagree, or slander their ideological counterparts.

Even at their absolute best, religious answers remain authoritarian attempts to instill virtue through inspiring intimidation.

if you had retroactively applied the rules of scientific rationalism to all of the major scientific discoveries of the past 500 years you would have invalidated most of them. Perhaps most (penicillin, the X-Ray, the microwave, Aspirin, radio, Archimedes in the bath)  were the product of “inspired opportunism”. As he once put it: “a methodology was an ideology Galileo could not afford.

That’s why you are here You are needed From the cosmic force that only speaks of being “intact” only wills to approach whole That’s how you are formed The indispensable part of healing the ideology

is foolish to insist, as our leaders habitually do, that the violent acts of radical Islamists can be divorced from the religious ideals that inspire them. Instead we must acknowledge that they are driven by a political ideology, an ideology embedded in Islam itself, in the holy book of the Qur’an as well as the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad contained in the hadith. Let me make my point in the simplest possible terms: Islam is not a religion of peace.

...Spinoza’s Conjecture:“Belief comes quickly and naturally, skepticism is slow and unnatural, and most people have a low tolerance for ambiguity. The scientific principle that a claim is untrue unless proven otherwise runs counter to our natural tendency to accept as true that which we can comprehend quickly. Thus it is that we should reward skepticism and disbelief, and champion those willing to change their mind in the teeth of new evidence. Instead, most social institutions-most notably those in religion, politics, and economics-reward belief in the doctrines of the faith or party or ideology, punish those who challenge the authority of the leaders, and discourage uncertainty and especially skepticism.

The years of guilt are over. We will not apologize for our achievements. Our history cannot be used as a weapon against us. No one can claim that have legal claims against us. Our glorious past makes us proud and happy. What we have done in the past today inspires us for even greater achievements tomorrow. Those who feel that we have hurt them should feel happy that they are still alive.

Disturbing encounters in life spur reflective thinking that jars a person from his or her exhausted ideologies and way of living. A person who lives passionately will develop a philosophic outlook because the road of excess leads to knowledge. Enthusiasm will frequently make a person look foolish, and result in intermittent periods of despondency and self-questioning, yet only exuberance and a degree of risk-taking leads us to wisdom.

The process of enlightenment and evolution can never happen without the realisation of shortcomings. People, when they think they are the best and can’t get any better, are easily offended when others see room for improvement. But it is when you think you are already the best that you have put a ceiling right on top of your head, a ceiling made of concrete, that stops you from becoming any better! Be happy when you see an area for improvement! Be happy that someone pointed it out to you, be happy that there is still space above you for you to reach towards; and not just an impenetrable ceiling of satisfaction and ideology.

. We are guided by outcomes, not ideology. We have a policy of principled realism, rooted in shared goals, interests, and values. That realism forces us to confront a question facing every leader and nation in this room. It is a question we cannot escape or avoid. We will slide down the path of complacency, numb to the challenges, threats, and even wars that we face. Or do we have enough strength and pride to confront those dangers today, so that our citizens can enjoy peace and prosperity tomorrow?

The ideological fantasies of this movement [New Left of the 1960s] … were no more than a nonsensical expression of the whims of spoilt middle-class children, and while the extremists among them were virtually indistinguishable from Fascist thugs, the movement did without doubt express a profound crisis of faith in the values that had inspired democratic societies for many decades.… The New Left explosion of academic youth was an aggressive movement born of frustration, which easily created a vocabulary for itself out of Marxist slogans … : liberation, revolution, alienation, etc. Apart from this, its ideology really has little in common with Marxism. It consists of “revolution” without the working class; hatred of modern technology as such; …the cult of primitive societies … as the source of progress; hatred of education and specialized knowledge.

More than anyone else, the omnipresent Hamilton galvanized, inspired, and scandalized the newborn nation, serving as a flash point for pent-up conflicts of class, geography, race, religion, and ideology. His contemporaries often seemed defined by how they reacted to the political gauntlets that he threw down repeatedly with such defiant panache.

Though the 20th century saw horrific genocides inspired by Nazi pseudoscience about genetics and race, it also saw horrific genocides inspired by Marxist pseudoscience about the malleability of human nature. The real threat to humanity comes from totalizing ideologies and the denial of human rights, rather than a curiosity about nature and nurture.

It is the 'ideologies' that drive us to extreme limits, not the commodities.

The political movements, or ideologies, inspired by Hegel are all united in the ostensible abandonment of virtue.

All it takes is an ideology seductive enough to convince you to discard common sense.

Before we can call ourselves the greatest, our ideology needs to catch up with our technology.

They can kill, harm, exile, imprison, destroy/ defame a person but not an idea. They can co-opt/ corrupt a person but not an idea. An idea that becomes a collective movement & ideology. A collective ideology cannot be killed, harmed, exiled, imprisoned, destroyed, defamed, co-opted or corrupted. This shall always prevail and stay as an ideology of the people collectively.

It bears remembering that the purpose of a free press, like the purpose of free speech, is to nurture the mind, communicate ideas, challenge ideologies, share notions, inspire creativity, and advocate and reinforce America’s founding principles—that is, to contribute to a vigorous, productive, healthy, and happy individual and to a well-functioning civil society and republic.

The temporary alliance between the elite and the mob rested largely on this genuine delight with which the former watched the latter destroy respectability. This could be achieved when the German steel barons were forced to deal with and to receive socially Hitler's the housepainter and self-admitted former derelict, as it could be with the crude and vulgar forgeries perpetrated by the totalitarian movements in all fields of intellectual life, insofar as they gathered all the subterranean, nonrespectable elements of European history into one consistent picture. From this viewpoint it was rather gratifying to see that Bolshevism and Nazism began even to eliminate those sources of their own ideologies which had already won some recognition in academic or other official quarters. Not Marx's dialectical materialism, but the conspiracy of 300 families; not the pompous scientificality of Gobineau and Chamberlain, but the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"; not the traceable influence of the Catholic Church and the role played by anti-clericalism in Latin countries, but the backstairs literature about the Jesuits and the Freemasons became the inspiration for the rewriters of history. The object of the most varied and variable constructions was always to reveal history as a joke, to demonstrate a sphere of secret influences of which the visible, traceable, and known historical reality was only the outward façade erected explicitly to fool the people. To this aversion of the intellectual elite for official historiography, to its conviction that history, which was a forgery anyway, might as well be the playground of crackpots, must be added the terrible, demoralizing fascination in the possibility that gigantic lies and monstrous falsehoods can eventually be established as unquestioned facts, that man may be free to change his own past at will, and that the difference between truth and falsehood may cease to be objective and become a mere matter of power and cleverness, of pressure and infinite repetition. Not Stalin’s and Hitler's skill in the art of lying but the fact that they were able to organize the masses into a collective unit to back up their lies with impressive magnificence, exerted the fascination. Simple forgeries from the viewpoint of scholarship appeared to receive the sanction of history itself when the whole marching reality of the movements stood behind them and pretended to draw from them the necessary inspiration for action.

Always let the world inspire and influence you, but never let it discourage you. In fact, the more the world discourages you, the more it needs you. As writers we have the profound privilege and responsibility to create a new world when the current one takes a turn for the worse. Storytellers are more than just entertainers; we’re the shepherds of ideology, the street pavers of progress, and the scientists of the soul.

True independence is an illusion; no one matures in a vacuum. We have heroes, we see villains, and ultimately we try to walk the path that’s our own, through an ideological valley whose landmarks have already been described and claimed by others.

[...] For instance, a gay man who played with dolls in his childhood, dresses pink and engages in anal sex with another man triggers a gender prejudice, by proxy rather than based on a characteristic of their own, like racism and classism do: dolls and pink are traditionally associated with the feminine sphere, anal sexuality has a higher stigma mainly because a more visible power level play comes into effect (with a dominant and a submissive role) than other sex positions. Consequently, when a man crosses his "designated" gender role boundary of masculinity, strength, dominance into femininity, weakness, submission, then he is no longer valued as a human being, for the man has become [or is] a woman. Therefore, homophobia and transphobia are actually by-products of misogyny, which is is turn gynophobic whitewashing, deeply rooted in the dominant ideology of patriarchy and historical sexism.

Our region is home to more than 200 million young people. We have the opportunity to inspire them with hope and to direct their energies toward improving their lives and the lives of those around them. If we fail, we will abandon them to emptiness, unemployment, and the malicious ideologies of terrorism.

A writer must find his own grain, way, bent. ...He aspires to create new and original works. His way is alone. If he succumbs to ideologies, he turns into a mouthpiece. He must hang on to his identity for dear life. In the end he must rely on his own judgment. It’s the only way to survive as a writer and an artist.

Perhaps we are all living inside a giant computer simulation, Matrix-style. That would contradict all our national, religious and ideological stories. But our mental experiences would still be real. If it turns out that human history is an elaborate simulation run on a super-computer by rat scientists from the planet Zircon, that would be rather embarrassing for Karl Marx and the Islamic State. But these rat scientists would still have to answer for the Armenian genocide and for Auschwitz. How did they get that one past the Zircon University’s ethics committee? Even if the gas chambers were just electric signals in silicon chips, the experiences of pain, fear and despair were not one iota less excruciating for that. Pain is pain, fear is fear, and love is love – even in the matrix. It doesn’t matter if the fear you feel is inspired by a collection of atoms in the outside world or by electrical signals manipulated by a computer. The fear is still real. So if you want to explore the reality of your mind, you can do that inside the matrix as well as outside it.

bears remembering that the purpose of a free press, like the purpose of free speech, is to nurture the mind, communicate ideas, challenge ideologies, share notions, inspire creativity, and advocate and reinforce America’s founding principles—that is, to contribute to a vigorous, productive, healthy, and happy individual and to a well-functioning civil society and republic.

Every morning I wake up to have the same hope, that mankind had survived its own greed, its own desire to self-destruct, its own monopoly to destroy the environment regardless of the consequences, its own religious and ideological dogma that kept it in turmoil since inception….I listen to the morning news to find out that nothing had changed, and realize more certainly that we are living on a barrowed time, and sometime in the future, if we wake up there will be fewer and fewer of us who will wonder but never learn what went wrong….this is human history, keep repeating itself in destruction, greed and chaos, at the best of times it is organized chaos….and at the worst of time it is mayhem, all to serve the few….who leaves crumbs for us to continue the cycle…

There is a curious phenomenon in Western intellectual life, namely that of being right at the wrong time. To be right at the wrong time is far, far worse than having been wrong for decades on end. In the estimation of many intellectuals, to be right at the wrong time is the worst possible social faux pas; like telling an off-colour joke at the throning of a bishop. In short, it is in unforgivable bad taste. There was never a good time, for example, to be anti-communist. Those who early warned of the dangers of bolshevism were regarded as lacking in compassion for the suffering of the masses under tsarism, as well as lacking the necessary imagination to “build” a better world. Then came the phase of denial of the crimes of communism, when to base one’s anti-communism on such phenomena as organised famine and the murder of millions was regarded as the malicious acceptance of ideologically-inspired lies and calumnies. When finally the catastrophic failure of communism could no longer be disguised, and all the supposed lies were acknowledged to have been true, to be anti-communist became tasteless in a different way: it was harping on pointlessly about what everyone had always known to be the case. The only good anti-communist was a mute anti-communist.

This belief in the truth of the image leaves us especially vulnerable to ideological coercion (which is not to say, of course, that the image cannot be subversive as well). The image, much more than the word, inspires trust, and this trust is precisely what ideology hopes to engender. This is why fascists rely so heavily on imagery. In fact, cultural theorist Paul Gilroy links the rise of the image to the rise of fascism in the mid-twentieth century.

Thomas Hobbes said that man is a wolve for anothe one. It seems to me that this became the basic foundation ideology for the Marxians. Though, it seems also inspired in Max Weber's ides, but actually, Weber reject it. According Stjerno, who quote Weber's idea about man (2005, p. 37), that for Weber, action is social when the individual gives it a subjective meaning that takes account of the behaviour of other and lets his ouw course of action, (Weber; 1978 (1922). Social relationship,said Weber, developed when many actors took into account of the hehaviour of the actions of others. A relationship is symmetrical when each actor gives it the same meaning. However, complet symmetry, Weber maintained, Stjerno added, was rare. Generally, the parts of a social relationship orient their actions on a rational basis,zweckrational - goal-oriented, but in part; they are also motivated by their values and sense of duty,(Stjerno, Steinar: 2005)

Islam is just a religion. Islamism is the ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society. Islamism is, therefore, theocratic extremism. Jihadism is the use of force to spread Islamism. Jihadist terrorism is the use of force that targets civilians to spread Islamism. The Islamic State is merely one jihadist terrorist group. The problem was never “al-Qaeda-inspired” extremism, because extremism itself inspired al-Qaeda, and then inspired the Islamic State. It is this extremism that must be named—as Islamism—and opposed.

In his poetry and prose, Rilke links through various images the affairs of human life to the movements of the cosmos itself. If this conceit seems hyperbolic, it is for Rilke rooted very deeply in his experiences of the world. The result is not esoteric, nor does it relativize and thus implicitly belittle human activity by placing it within a greater, superior—not divine—order. By seeing things rather within a larger, natural (rather than ideological or religious) pattern, Rilke achieves a fundamentally modern secular perspective but does not give up on the possibility that there might be something greater in our lives. Interestingly, Rilke finds evidence of a connectedness to larger, cosmic patterns within our physical, bodily existence. How we breathe, eat, sleep, digest, and love; how we suffer physically or experience pleasure: we are subject to rhythms we cannot totally control. Rilke relies on no ideational frame but understands our existence as that of decidedly earthly, embodied mortals or, in the language of the philosophers whose work he so significantly shaped and inspired, as beings in time.

As we have discussed, however, Islam is just a religion. Islamism is the ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society. Islamism is, therefore, theocratic extremism. Jihadism is the use of force to spread Islamism. Jihadist terrorism is the use of force that targets civilians to spread Islamism. The Islamic State is merely one jihadist terrorist group. The problem was never “al-Qaeda-inspired” extremism, because extremism itself inspired al-Qaeda, and then inspired the Islamic State. It is this extremism that must be named—as Islamism—and opposed.

Being on the frontier, as I've said, required doing rather than imagining: clearing land, building shelter, obtaining food supplies. Frontiers test ideologies like nothing else. There is no time for the theoretical. That, ultimately, is why America has not been friendly to communism, fascism, or other, more benign forms of utopianism. Idealized concepts have rarely taken firm root in America, and so intellectuals have had to look to Europe for inspiration. People here are too busy making money - an extension, of course, of the frontier ethos, with its emphasis on practical initiative.

At very best there are two problems with ideology. The first is that it does not represent or conform to or even address reality. It is a straight-edge ruler of a fractal universe. And the second is that it inspires in its believers the notion that the fault here lies with miscreant fact, which should therefore be conformed to the requirements of theory by all means necessary. To the ideologue this would amount to putting the world right, ridding it of ambiguity and of those tedious and endless moral and ethical questions that dog us through life, and that those around us so rarely answer to our satisfaction.

Muhammad had become the head of a collection of tribal groups that were not bound together by blood but by a shared ideology, an astonishing innovation in Arabian society. Nobody was forced to convert to the religion of the Quran, but Muslims, pagans and Jews all belonged to one ummah, could not attack one another, and vowed to give each other protection. News of this extraordinary new ‘supertribe’ spread, and though at the outset nobody thought that it had a chance of survival, it proved to be an inspiration that would bring peace to Arabia before the death of the Prophet in 632, just ten years after the hijrah.

The violent secularism of al-Nasser had led Qutb to espouse a form of Islam that distorted both the message of the Quran and the Prophet’s life. Qutb told Muslims to model themselves on Muhammad: to separate themselves from mainstream society (as Muhammad had made the hijrah from Mecca to Medina), and then engage in a violent jihad. But Muhammad had in fact finally achieved victory by an ingenious policy of non-violence; the Quran adamantly opposed force and coercion in religious matters, and its vision—far from preaching exclusion and separation—was tolerant and inclusive. Qutb insisted that the Quranic injunction to toleration could occur only after the political victory of Islam and the establishment of a true Muslim state. The new intransigence sprang from the profound fear that is at the core of fundamentalist religion. Qutb did not survive. At al-Nasser’s personal insistence, he was executed in 1966. Every Sunni fundamentalist movement has been influenced by Qutb. Most spectacularly it has inspired Muslims to assassinate such leaders as Anwar al-Sadat, denounced as a jahili ruler because of his oppressive policies towards his own people. The Taliban, who came to power in Afghanistan in 1994, are also affected by his ideology.

The whole history of India and Hinduism. First comes Krishna. Seeing his charisma, the whole country follows him. Then comes Buddha who is completely opposite ideology. But seeing his charisma and ability to lead people into enlightenment experience, the whole country followed him. Then came Shankara. Just his ability to lead people into experience, simply the whole country followed him. Then came Nagarjuna who is completely opposite to Shankara. But his ability to lead people to experience, the whole country followed him. So, we never followed any infrastructure, organization. We followed the beings’ ability to lead us into the next level.

Launching more drone strikes than Bush ever did and compiling a secret “kill list,” President Obama’s administration took the view that al-Qaeda was like an organized crime gang—disrupt the hierarchy, destroy the gang. Theirs was a concerted and dogmatic attempt at pretending that al-Qaeda was nothing but a fringe criminal group, and not a concrete realization of an ideological phenomenon with grassroots sympathy. They took this view in part because of how successful Islamist “fellow-traveler” lobbies had been in influencing Obama’s campaign after the mistakes of the Bush years. For Islamists and their allies, the problem was “al-Qaeda inspired extremism,” and not the extremism that had inspired al-Qaeda.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, every hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Apart from a few explanations that are not the subject of this essay, the strange and terrifying growth of the modern State can be considered as the logical conclusion of inordinate technical and philosophical ambitions, foreign to the true spirit of rebellion, but which nevertheless gave birth to the revolutionary spirit of our time. The prophetic dream of Marx and the over-inspired predictions of Hegel or of Nietzsche ended by conjuring up, after the city of God had been razed to the ground, a rational or irrational State, which in both cases, however, was founded on terror. In actual fact, the Fascist revolutions of the twentieth century do not merit the title of revolution. They lacked the ambition of universality. Mussolini and Hitler, of course, tried to build an empire, and the National Socialist ideologists were bent, explicitly, on world domination. But the difference between them and the classic revolutionary movement is that, of the nihilist inheritance, they chose to deify the irrational, and the irrational alone, instead of deifying reason. In this way they renounced their claim to universality. And yet Mussolini makes use of Hegel, and Hitler of Nietzsche; and both illustrate, historically, some of the prophecies of German ideology. In this respect they belong to the history of rebellion and of nihilism. They were the first to construct a State on the concept that everything is meaningless and that history is only written in terms of the hazards of force. The consequences were not long in appearing.

The art of staying motivated, being happy, and continually improving oneself is a dynamic interplay that shapes a fulfilling life journey. Motivation is not a fleeting emotion but a sustained commitment to finding purpose and inspiration in daily pursuits. Happiness, the compass of well-being, emanates from a life aligned with personal values, while self-improvement serves as the engine propelling you towards your best self. To be better and stronger necessitates resilience, a dedication to continuous learning, and the wisdom to discern toxic individuals and political ideologies that may hinder your progress. Surrounding yourself with positivity and steering clear of toxicity is not just a lifestyle choice; it is a deliberate strategy for crafting a life of fulfillment and purpose.

It is almost inconceivable that so many filmmakers could think of nothing -- be inspired by nothing -- nothing, nothing, nothing -- but the politics of representation, 'performitivity', gender, race, queer theory etc. There must be other subjects, in the world outside or in their inner lives, which belong on the silver (or digital) screen. This degree of conformity is unsettling. It should alarm cultural elites rather than comfort them. Yet the art world's ideological atmosphere is so thick and pervasive that those inside of it don't even realise it as the air they breathe." "Forgive me, I forgot to mention the other permissible topic: 'consumptive capitalism', that oppressive economic system which creates vast sums of taxable wealth, which in turn allows the UK government to fund even this nonsense.

Referring to a mask as a law of nature is another way of saying that it cannot be escaped or transcended; there is no getting beyond or beneath it. But when Deleuze describes the intention of interpretation, we find it is 'an art of piercing masks, of discovering the one that masks himself, why he does it and the point of keeping up the mask while it is being reshaped'." The Nietzschean-inspired disavowal of ideology is based on the claim that critique is only an ongoing series of interpretations where masks give way to nothing but more of their own. Deleuze's instruction is to pierce masks so that motivations and strategies can be discovered, whether they belong to subjects or to a particular manifestation of power. The obvious implication is that the appearance of a mask obscures other qualities that are potentially more fundamental than just another mask.

The idea of progress is contemporary with the age of enlightenment and with the bourgeois revolution. Of course, certain sources of its inspiration can be found in the seventeenth century; the quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns already introduced into European ideology the perfectly absurd conception of an artistic form of progress. In a more serious fashion, the idea of a science that steadily increases its conquests can also be derived from Cartesian philosophy. But Turgot, in 1750, is the first person to give a clear definition of the new faith. His treatise on the progress of the human mind basically recapitulates Bossuet's universal history. The idea of progress alone is substituted for the divine will. "The total mass of the human race, by alternating stages of calm and agitation, of good and evil, always marches, though with dragging footsteps, toward greater and greater perfection." This optimistic statement will furnish the basic ingredient of the rhetorical observations of Condorcet, the official theorist of progress, which he linked with the progress of the State and of which he was also the official victim in that the enlightened State forced him to poison himself. Sorel was perfectly correct in saying that the philosophy of progress was exactly the philosophy to suit a society eager to enjoy the material prosperity derived from technical progress. When we are assured that tomorrow, in the natural order of events, will be better than today, we can enjoy ourselves in peace. Progress, paradoxically, can be used to justify conservatism. A draft drawn on confidence in the future, it allows the master to have a clear conscience. The slave and those whose present life is miserable and who can find no consolation in the heavens are assured that at least the future belongs to them. The future is the only kind of property that the masters willingly concede to the slaves.

Recently, a judge of the prestigious 2014 British Forward Prize for Poetry was moved to observe that “there is an awful lot of very powerful, lyrical, and readable poetry being written today,” but we need education, because “we have lost the sense that poetry sits halfway between prose and music—that you can’t expect to read it like a novel.” A few years ago, the New York Times published an op-ed of mine, about learning poetry by heart. The response to it confirmed that people of all ages think about poetry as a kind of inspired music, embodying beauty and insight. On one hand, poetry has always flowed from music, as rap and hip-hop remind us big-time. Rappers know how poetry walks and talks. So we have music, or deeply felt recitations of poems that belong to collective memory. On the other hand, we have overly instructive prose poems, as well as the experiments of certain critical ideologies, or conceptual performance art. These aspects seem to represent the public, Janus face of poetry.

In the first case, the religious association succumbs to destruction from within, its organism becomes subordinated to goals completely different from the original idea, and its theosophic and moral values fall prey to characteristic deformation, thereupon serving as a disguise for domination by pathological individuals. The religious idea then becomes both a justification for using force and sadism against non-believers, heretics, and sorcerers, and a conscience drug for people who put such inspirations into effect. Anyone criticizing such a state of affairs is condemned with paramoral indignation, allegedly in the name of the original idea and faith in God, but actually because he feels and thinks within the categories of normal people. Such a system retains the name of the original religion and many other specific names, swearing on the prophet’s beard while using this for its doubletalk. Something which was to be originally an aid in the comprehension of God’s truth now scourges nations with the sword of imperialism.

Myth is also where the differences lie. Where Crusoe articulates a ‘foundation myth’ that shows Western Man asserting his autonomy and dominance as if from scratch, the Journal charts his encounter with a phenomenon he cannot understand or control. Crusoe celebrates the resourcefulness needed to create a world from new; the Journal, the endurance to watch it fall apart. For that reason it is arguably this book that among all Defoe’s works speaks most eloquently to early twenty-first-century readers attuned to imaginary landscapes of nuclear and environmental devastation, to grim fantasies of alien invasion, to the panic and policies that accompany epidemic disease... Turning an eye on the commercial and spiritual centre of empire rather than an island outpost, it dares to envisage London consumed not just by disease but violent self-interest that tears at the social fabric. It is that very modern phenomenon, an illness narrative, but one in which the patient is a whole city. Works inspired by it—Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, Albert Camus’s La Peste—do not so much dismantle its ideology as try to render afresh the uniquely disturbing impact. (David Roberts)

If we analyze white supremacy from the philosophical lens of Star Wars, then it is all the Sith Lords, the Empire, and the First Order commanded by the Dark Side of the Force. It wants to dominate and impose its will on all galaxies, even those far, far away. Let’s just call this insidious force THE WHITENESS. The Whiteness’s ability to inspire fear and anger is so strong that it corrupted many well-​intentioned people, including people of color, to vote for an incompetent vulgarian in 2016 and 2020. It deludes many liberal and “moderate” whites into believing that they are the “good” ones who are committed to social justice as they talk about white privilege but never actually give up any of it. Still, they’ll have these discussions about racial equality with their white friends in establishments with white patrons from white neighborhoods—​without including the rest of us. The Whiteness has always played for all the marbles. It’s not interested in diplomacy, a representative government, free and fair elections, equitable pay, and a delicious buffet of meals from a multitude of countries. It needs a border wall, a Muslim Ban, and affirmative action for wealthy white students at Yale University. It’s a system, a structure, a paradigm, an ideology whose ultimate goal is domination and submission by any means necessary.

Perhaps it is time to question goals that run counter to near-universal behavior. There may be lessons for us in the failure of Soviet-style Communism. It is our era's foremost example of a system that made mesmerizing promises of an earthly paradise but betrayed those promises. Millions of people were inspired by an ideology that would do away with capitalist exploitation. Marxists believed that the working class would seize the means of production, the state would wither away, selfishness would disappear, and man would live 'from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.' In the name of this ideology millions gave their lives and took the lives of millions of others. Communism failed. It failed for many reasons, not least because it was a misreading of human nature. Selfishness cannot be abolished. People do not work just as hard on collective farms as they do on their own land. The almost universal rejection of Communism today marks the acceptance of people as they are, not as Communism wished them to be. Is it possible that our racial ideals assume that people should become something they cannot? If most people prefer the company of people like themselves, what do we achieve by insisting that they deny that preference? If diversity is a weakness rather than a strength, why work to increase diversity?

Presentism, neglect of the future (along with forgetfulness and contempt for the past) is the paradoxical characteristic of a society and elites who have nothing but the words progress, innovation, modernity on their lips in every domain, including the economic. As soon as one is no longer ‘in love’ as depicted in television shows, as soon as sexual desire fades, one separates from one’s current partner. Marrying for superficial reasons, one separates for superficial reasons. Moreover, this compulsive and immature sort of behaviour is found not only in relationships but also in eroticism and sex in general, always under the sign of speed, immediacy, and instant gratification. Conjugal love and even sex are no longer savoured but consumed or indeed devoured, as if by fire. Despite a form of pseudo-maturity demanded in all domains, especially sexual, and an ideology of liberation, Westerners since the 1960s (the baby boom generation to which I belong) have had difficulty proceeding to the psychological stage of adulthood, that of building for the long-term. This is true even in fields very different to those of sex and relationships, and include those of politics and economics. It is the generalised reign of immaturity and improvidence. Marriage is then conceived as a sort of game, and it ends as soon as one blows the final whistle. Unrestrained enjoyment, the slogan of May ‘68,[27] inspired by a cheap, boorish hedonism, has actually passed into our mores.

[Magyar] had an intense dislike for terms like 'illiberal,' which focused on traits the regimes did not possess--like free media or fair elections. This he likened to trying to describe an elephant by saying that the elephant cannot fly or cannot swim--it says nothing about what the elephant actually is. Nor did he like the term 'hybrid regime,' which to him seemed like an imitation of a definition, since it failed to define what the regime was ostensibly a hybrid of. Magyar developed his own concept: the 'post-communist mafia state.' Both halves of the designation were significant: 'post-communist' because "the conditions preceding the democratic big bang have a decisive role in the formation of the system. Namely that it came about on the foundations of a communist dictatorship, as a product of the debris left by its decay." (quoting Balint Magyar) The ruling elites of post-communist states most often hail from the old nomenklatura, be it Party or secret service. But to Magyar this was not the countries' most important common feature: what mattered most was that some of these old groups evolved into structures centered around a single man who led them in wielding power. Consolidating power and resources was relatively simple because these countries had just recently had Party monopoly on power and a state monopoly on property. ... A mafia state, in Magyar's definition, was different from other states ruled by one person surrounded by a small elite. In a mafia state, the small powerful group was structured just like a family. The center of the family is the patriarch, who does not govern: "he disposes--of positions, wealth, statuses, persons." The system works like a caricature of the Communist distribution economy. The patriarch and his family have only two goals: accumulating wealth and concentrating power. The family-like structure is strictly hierarchical, and membership in it can be obtained only through birth or adoption. In Putin's case, his inner circle consisted of men with whom he grew up in the streets and judo clubs of Leningrad, the next circle included men with whom he had worked with in the KGB/FSB, and the next circle was made up of men who had worked in the St. Petersburg administration with him. Very rarely, he 'adopted' someone into the family as he did with Kholmanskikh, the head of the assembly shop, who was elevated from obscurity to a sort of third-cousin-hood. One cannot leave the family voluntarily: one can only be kicked out, disowned and disinherited. Violence and ideology, the pillars of the totalitarian state, became, in the hands of the mafia state, mere instruments. The post-communist mafia state, in Magyar's words, is an "ideology-applying regime" (while a totalitarian regime is 'ideology-driven'). A crackdown required both force and ideology. While the instruments of force---the riot police, the interior troops, and even the street-washing machines---were within arm's reach, ready to be used, ideology was less apparently available. Up until spring 2012, Putin's ideological repertoire had consisted of the word 'stability,' a lament for the loss of the Soviet empire, a steady but barely articulated restoration of the Soviet aesthetic and the myth of the Great Patriotic War, and general statements about the United States and NATO, which had cheated Russia and threatened it now. All these components had been employed during the 'preventative counter-revolution,' when the country, and especially its youth, was called upon to battle the American-inspired orange menace, which threatened stability. Putin employed the same set of images when he first responded to the protests in December. But Dugin was now arguing that this was not enough. At the end of December, Dugin published an article in which he predicted the fall of Putin if he continued to ignore the importance of ideas and history.

Activists who expressed genuine and reasonable concern for the struggles of trans-identified people would simultaneously dismiss women’s desire for safety, privacy, dignity and fair competition. Unlike those activists, I feel compassion both for people who feel at odds with their sexed bodies, and for the people, mainly women and children, who are harmed when sexual dimorphism is denied. At first I was puzzled that well-educated young women were the most ardent supporters of this new policy of gender self-identification, even though it is very much against their interests. A man may be embarrassed if a female person uses a male changing room; a male in a communal female facility can inspire fear. I came to see it as the rising generation’s ‘luxury belief’ – a creed espoused by members of an elite to enhance their status in each other’s eyes, with the harms experienced by the less fortunate. If you have social and financial capital, you can buy your way out of problems – if a facility you use jeopardises your safety or privacy, you will simply switch. It is poorer and older women who are stuck with the consequences of self-ID in women’s prisons, shelters and refuges, hospital wards and care homes. And some women’s apparent support for self-ID is deceptive, expressed for fear of what open opposition would bring. The few male academics and journalists who write critically on this topic tell me that they get only a fraction of the hate directed at their female peers (and are spared the sexualised insults and rape threats). This dynamic is reinforced by ageism, which is inextricably intertwined with misogyny – including internalised misogyny. I was astonished by the young female reviewer who described my book’s tone as ‘harsh’ and ‘unfortunate’. I wondered if she knew that sexists often say they would have listened to women if only they had stated their demands more nicely and politely, and whether she realised that once she is no longer young and beautiful, the same sorts of things will be said about her, too.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

When we think of the historic struggles and conflicts of the current and past century, we naturally think of famous leaders: men who governed nations, commanded armies, and inspired movements in the defense of liberty, or in the service of ideologies which have obliterated liberty. Yet today, in this hour of human history, when the forces arrayed against the free spirit of man are more powerful, more brutal, and potentially more deadly than ever before, the single figure who has raised the highest flame of liberty heads no state, commands no army, and leads no movement that our eyes can see. But there is a movement—a hidden movement of human beings who have no offices and no headquarters, who are not represented in the great halls where nations meet, who every day risk or suffer more for the right to speak, to think, and to be true to themselves than any of us here are likely to risk in our lifetime. We heed this voice, not because it speaks for the left or the right or for any faction, but because it hurls truth and courage into the teeth of total power when it would be so much easier and more comfortable to submit to and embrace the lies by which that power lives. What is the strength of this voice? How has it broken through to us when others have been silenced? Its strength is art. Art illuminates the truth. It is, in a sense, subversive: subversive of hypocrisy, subversive of delusion, subversive of untruth. Few combinations in all of history have demonstrated the power of the pen coupled with the courage of free men’s minds. We need that power desperately today. We need it to teach the new and forgetful generations in our midst what it means to be free. Freedom is not an abstraction, neither is the absence of freedom. Art is a unique gift. It cannot be transmuted to another. But let us pray that this courage is contagious. We need echoes of this voice. We need to hear echoes in the White House. We need to hear the echoes in Congress and in the State Department and in the universities and media. The American ethos, from its conception to the contemporary, has been dedicated to the firm, unyielding belief in freedom. Freedom for all mankind, as well as for ourselves. It is in this spirit that we live our lives.

As you know, the public conversation about the connection between Islamic ideology and Muslim intolerance and violence has been stifled by political correctness. In the West, there is now a large industry of apology and obfuscation designed, it would seem, to protect Muslims from having to grapple with the kinds of facts we’ve been talking about. The humanities and social science departments of every university are filled with scholars and pseudo-scholars—deemed to be experts in terrorism, religion, Islamic jurisprudence, anthropology, political science, and other fields—who claim that Muslim extremism is never what it seems. These experts insist that we can never take Islamists and jihadists at their word and that none of their declarations about God, paradise, martyrdom, and the evils of apostasy have anything to do with their real motivations. When one asks what the motivations of Islamists and jihadists actually are, one encounters a tsunami of liberal delusion. Needless to say, the West is to blame for all the mayhem we see in Muslim societies. After all, how would we feel if outside powers and their mapmakers had divided our lands and stolen our oil? These beleaguered people just want what everyone else wants out of life. They want economic and political security. They want good schools for their kids. They want to be free to flourish in ways that would be fully compatible with a global civil society. Liberals imagine that jihadists and Islamists are acting as anyone else would given a similar history of unhappy encounters with the West. And they totally discount the role that religious beliefs play in inspiring a group like the Islamic State—to the point where it would be impossible for a jihadist to prove that he was doing anything for religious reasons. Apparently, it’s not enough for an educated person with economic opportunities to devote himself to the most extreme and austere version of Islam, to articulate his religious reasons for doing so ad nauseam, and even to go so far as to confess his certainty about martyrdom on video before blowing himself up in a crowd. Such demonstrations of religious fanaticism are somehow considered rhetorically insufficient to prove that he really believed what he said he believed. Of course, if he said he did these things because he was filled with despair and felt nothing but revulsion for humanity, or because he was determined to sacrifice himself to rid his nation of tyranny, such a psychological or political motive would be accepted at face value. This double standard is guaranteed to exonerate religion every time. The game is rigged.

Intolerance was also there from the outset. Any Muslim who heard the Wahhabis’ call or dawah and did not join them was an infidel whose property was forfeit. This conviction that any opponent was an infidel or kaffir united, inspired, and disciplined the Wahhabis. From the outset, military conquest was part of their ideology, as commonplace raiding for loot was transformed into a holy war for religious reform.

Of course, Soviet war literature shows all the profound suffering and privation caused by the perfidious attack on the Soviet Union by the nazi war machine. Reading about the privations of their motherland inspired the hearts of Soviet soldiers with a thirst for vengeance and fired them with hate for the nazi beast. But to reduce Soviet war literature to the single common denominator of suffering and privation is to impoverish it, to rob it of its ideological and political ring, and consciously to belittle its active influence in fostering the heroism of the Soviet soldier.

The Problem The problem I have, my friends, is too complicated. It is not only that I no longer have a home, Or a roof over my head. It is that I no longer wish to have one. I confess to you; however, that Even if I wished to have a place to call home, My wish would be impossible to realize, Because I have been erased from everywhere. Yes, the mercenaries And those who worship the dollar notes, Under the names of religions and ideologies, Have erased me from history. They have revised and rewrote my story. Everywhere I go, I find them lurking and waiting for me, To blockade me, To suffocate me, And to steal from my mouth The few crumbs of bread I have left. And so, I repeat, my friends, My problem is too complicated. I don’t have a home, I no longer want a home, And I couldn’t have a home to shelter me, Even if so I wished in my wild dreams. June 1, 2017

The West has been compassionate, visionary, and creative during certain periods of history, yet dynamic, hardheaded, and imperialistic in others—even at the same time. Its technologies have saved millions and killed hundreds of thousands of others at a single press of a button. Its theologies have inspired some of the greatest works in human history, and also burned helpless victims at the stake. Its ideologies have created the freest and most dynamic societies in the world, and also the most brutal tyrannies in the history of man. Why? Much, if not all, the answer lies in the perpetual struggle between Plato and Aristotle.

By reading translated stories, we made efforts to understand unfamiliar worlds, cultures, and ideologies. We learned an intellectual excitement for the unknown, because that is what would expose us to new worlds. That, more than anything, is where the true pleasure of reading is found.

I often remind myself to not make any small plans, because it cannot inspire the soul.

In my eyes, the meaning of the word insult has changed. It is no longer a sharp blade that strips me off dignity, but a powerful driving force, like overwhelming mountains, urging me to move ahead and pursue all good things. If the photographer inspired a poor boy to become the richest man in the world, it does not seem like he went overboard.

In a few short decades, the Western tradition has moved from being celebrated to being embarrassing and anachronistic and, finally, to being something shameful. lt turned from a story meant to inspire people and nurture them in their lives into a story meant to shame people. And it wasn't just the term "Western" that critics objected to. It was everything connected with it. Even "civilization" itself. As one of the gurus of modern racist "anti-racism," lbram X. Kendi put it, '"Civilization' itself is often a polite euphemism for cultural racism.

The pursuit of personal development is a tapestry woven with threads of motivation, happiness, and self-improvement. Staying motivated is an art, requiring the cultivation of a mindset that finds inspiration in every challenge. True happiness springs from aligning your pursuits with your passions, and self-improvement is the compass guiding you towards the best version of yourself. To be better and stronger involves a commitment to continuous refinement, learning from experiences, and embracing resilience in the face of adversity. A crucial aspect of this journey is the discernment to distance yourself from toxic people and political ideologies that threaten your well-being, ensuring a path of positive growth and fulfillment.

In the grand tapestry of personal development, motivation acts as the driving force, happiness as the destination, and self-improvement as the transformative journey. Staying motivated demands a conscious effort to find inspiration in the mundane, creating a reservoir of energy that propels you forward. Authentic happiness arises from living in alignment with your values, and the pursuit of being better and stronger necessitates a commitment to continual growth and learning. Recognizing toxic individuals and political ideologies as obstacles to your progress is essential; distancing yourself from negativity is not just an act of self-care but a strategic move towards fostering a life of purpose and positivity.

The intricate dance of motivation, happiness, and self-improvement defines the path to being better and stronger. Motivation, the initial spark, requires a constant feed of inspiration, drawing strength from your goals and aspirations. Happiness, the ultimate goal, is a reflection of a life lived authentically, while self-improvement serves as the compass guiding you through the journey. To be better and stronger, one must embrace challenges as opportunities for growth, learning, and resilience. Recognizing and avoiding toxic influences, whether in personal relationships or political ideologies, is a pivotal step in cultivating a positive environment conducive to genuine self-discovery and improvement.

The symphony of motivation, happiness, and self-improvement orchestrates a harmonious life where each note contributes to the melody of personal growth. Staying motivated requires the cultivation of a mindset that draws inspiration from challenges, transforming adversity into opportunities for learning and advancement. Happiness, the crescendo of a life well-lived, unfolds when one aligns their actions with their authentic self. To be better and stronger involves a commitment to continual self-discovery, learning, and growth, while navigating away from toxic influences—be it toxic people or political ideologies—ensures a path of positive transformation and genuine fulfillment.

Navigating the path of personal development involves an intricate dance between motivation, happiness, and the pursuit of continuous self-improvement. Staying motivated is an art that requires finding inspiration in both triumphs and challenges, sustaining a passion for growth. True happiness emanates from living authentically, in harmony with one's values, while the journey of self-improvement serves as a guiding light towards becoming the best version of oneself. To be better and stronger entails a commitment to resilience, learning, and the discernment to distance oneself from toxic influences, be they individuals or ideologies, paving the way for a life marked by positive evolution and fulfillment.

My sixth point concerns the effect of existentialism in blasting open philosophical systems thinking and natural science ideology. This process also dates back to the first half of the nineteenth century. Its opening scene played when Kierkegaard objected that Hegel had forgotten the real existing individual when he constructed his system. This approach reached its culmination in the mid-twentieth century when Jean-Paul Sartre, inspired by the phenomenologists Husserl and Heidegger, presented his widely influential theory of committed existence.

They were the progressives, the freethinkers, the radicals of their day. History favoured such people. They had brought great change, and great innovation, and the present was all the greater for their inspiration. But now, Ibrahim believed, the pendulum had swung too far. The Great Cause had become merely an ideology, and ideology, Ibrahim knew only too well, was the antithesis of reason.

According to the ideology of reincarnation, Earth is both your heaven and your hell. Everything is paid for and rewarded here.

The code name for the plot among Al Qaeda’s inner circle was the Big Wedding. In the ideology of suicide bombers, the day of a martyr’s death is also his wedding day where he will be greeted by virgins at the gates of heaven. This was their prize, their inspiration.

The Likud championed retention of the West Bank, which it referred to by its biblical names, Judea and Samaria, whereas Labor advocated turning over some of the area to Jordan as part of a peace treaty. By using the names Judea and Samaria, the Likud emphasized the biblical link with the land. In their platform, they stated, “The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and linked with the right to security and peace; therefore Judea and Samaria will not be handed over to any foreign administration.” Moreover, the Begin-led government planned not only to retain the territory, but to greatly increase the number of Jewish inhabitants there through the introduction of settlements. It was a major part of their ideology: “Settlement, both urban and rural, in all parts of the Land of Israel is the focal point of the Zionist effort to redeem the country, to maintain vital security areas, and serves as a reservoir of strength and inspiration for the renewal of the pioneering spirit.”1 Likud leaders referred to the building of settlements as “the creation of facts,” which would prevent any withdrawal from the West Bank in the future.